This playlist is a bit late as I was finishing up the last of the team rankings, but it includes songs released between when I published my top 100 songs of 2024 and January 31st, so anything that’s come out in the last eleven days will go on the next playlist. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.
SAULT – The Lesson. SAULT dropped an album with no warning, as they typically do, right before Christmas, the religious-themed Acts of Faith. It’s a more subdued effort and has less of the over social activism of their previous albums, still with several really compelling tracks even though much of the lyrical content is foreign to me.
Little Simz – Hello, Hi. A surprise drop from the Mercury Prize-winning British rapper, her first new music since the too-brief Drop 7 EP came out this time last year, although there’s no word on a new album.
Goat feat. MC Yallah – Nimerudi. I knew Goat, but not MC Yallah, a Kenyan-born rapper now based in Uganda who rhymes in four languages. She’s great, combining technical skill and a really easy flow, so I was into it even when I didn’t get the language she was using. I feel like she must have grown up listening to a lot of Queen Latifah and Native Tongues.
Skunk Anansie – An Artist is an Artist. Definitely didn’t know Skunk Anansie was a going concern, or that Skin was 1) the chancellor of a British university and 2) awarded an OBE, but I don’t know a lot of things, so there’s that. Anyway, this is the first new music from Skunk Anansie since 2022 and they’ve hinted that there might be an album coming in 2025, which would be their first in nearly a decade. I know their ‘90s output more than anything from the last 20 years, but this song is one of their most accessible – without losing any of the rage and fire that made them icons in the first place.
Doves – Cold Dreaming. Musically, this is one of their best tracks post-Last Broadcast. I wish Jimi had handled the vocals, and the opening line of “God knows, it ain’t easy” is hackneyed, taking the song down a peg, but it’s still a great sign for Constellations For The Lonely, which comes out on Valentine’s Day.
Courting – After You. Courting’s last album, New Last Name, made my list of the top albums of 2024, and they’re already back with another LP, Lust for Life, Or; ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’, dropping March 14th with this track and last fall’s “Pause at You.” I’m just a fan of their angular art-rock sound, and they seem to have an endless supply of melodies to throw on top. Plus they just always sound like they’re having fun.
Swervedriver – Volume Control. Swervedriver often get lumped in with the Britpop and/or shoegaze movements because they were contemporaries of those bands and sometimes had some similarities in the production style, but they had a harder rock edge and more blues influence. I believe this is their first new song in six years, since their last album, Spiked Flower, came out in January of 2019, and once again it has that heavier rhythm guitar and bass presence that I think brings almost a metal influence to their alternative rock vibe.
WOOZE – Running Outside with Heather. Every time this song comes on, I think it’s from one of my playlists of 1970s rock, but then it shifts gears into a sort of dance riot – which is WOOZE’s specialty.
The Darkness – Rock and Roll Party Cowboy. Not their strongest, I admit, but “I’m a rock and roll party cowboy/and I ain’t gonna read no Tolstoy” is a hell of a couplet. The guitar solo’s appropriately ridiculous as well. Dreams on Toast comes out March 28th.
Sunflower Bean – Champagne Taste. I find it fascinating that Sunflower Bean had a hit with “Moment in the Sun” and immediately changed their sound to a harder-edged, almost glam rock circa 1978 vibe, rather than leaning into the song that made them somewhat popular. Good for them.
Lambrini Girls – Nothing Tastes as Good as It Feels. This punk duo’s debut album Who Let the Dogs Out? has 11 tracks and runs just 29½ minutes, but it’s packed with witty, incisive lyrics about misogyny and gender politics. “Company Culture” is still my favorite from the record.
Heartworms – Extraordinary Wings. Jojo Orme released her debut album Glutton for Punishment in January, and it’s packed with tracks like this one that blend industrial, new wave, and goth elements but that still end up with memorable hooks.
Mourn – Verdura y Sentimientos. Mourn’s garage-rock sound hasn’t changed much over the last decade, since the early single “Gertrudis (Get Through This)” hit my radar, and I’m good with that – it’s raw, emotional, tinged with post-punk, and never overproduced. This was one of two songs they released together, with the other titled “Alegre y Jovial.”
Momma – I Want You (Fever). I like Momma, and I like this song a lot, but my God is this derivative of … well, listen to the track and sing it with me: “I want you/Fever/Can’t fight/the seether.”
Tunde Adembimpe – Drop. The singer of TV on the Radio gave his debut solo album a name, Thee Black Boltz, and a release date, April 18th, along with this second single, not quite as strong as “Magnetic” but still pretty good if, like me, you like some of TVotR’s more rockin’ stuff.
Bartees Strange – Wants Needs. Strange had my #1 song of 2022 with “Heavy Heart” off his sophomore album Farm to Table, but since then he’s just had a few scattered singles, nothing with the same energy – until this one, the first single ahead of the release of his third album, Horror, this Friday.
Lord Huron feat. Kristen Stewart – Who Laughs Last? I mean, is it a gimmick? It kind of feels like one to have Stewart read some pretentious lines over what is otherwise a strong backing track with a pounding electronic beat and a solid hook in the chorus.
Mogwai – Fanzine Made of Flesh. This Scottish experimental rock band released their eleventh album, The Bad Fire, in January. I’ve never been a huge fan because I don’t find a lot to grab onto in their songs, but I do appreciate that they’re generally pushing boundaries – their songs are interesting even if they’re not catchy.
Population II – Le thé est prêt. Population II does really old-school psychedelic/prog rock, right down to mimicking the production style; it’s an anachronism and I kind of dig their willingness to lean into the quaintness of the sound. They’ve released three albums, the first of which comprised just two songs but ran about 35 minutes; their fourth LP, Maintenant jamais, comes out on March 28th.
clipping. – Change the Channel. Not quite as strong as “Run It” but still compelling work from Daveed Diggs & company ahead of their more industrial-leaning album Dead Channel Sky, due out March 14.
bdrmm – Infinity Peaking. bdrmm’s third album Microtonic comes out on the 28th; I keep seeing them described as “shoegaze,” a label that gets slapped on everyone now, but they are way more avant garde than typical shoegaze. It’s just that they have some of that wall of distortion going on around all of the experimentation. This is where I thought black midi was headed before they broke up or went on hiatus. (I’d say that twice over for Squid, whose newest album is once again ambitious and experimental, but the lyrics are often disturbing and the music heads too far afield.)
The Horrors – More than Life. Another single ahead of the release of their sixth album, Night Life, which will be their first full-length record since 2017’s V., their best to date and one of the best albums of that decade. This is a little more downtempo than “The Silence that Remains,” the first single this psychedelic/shoegazey rock band put out from the record late last year.
Pastel – Heroes’ Blood. This British band that blends shoegaze and Britpop elements put out their debut album, Souls in Motion, last month; the best songs are mostly ones we’ve heard already and that I’ve put on previous playlists, including “Your Day” and “Leave a Light On.” This was my favorite of the songs they hadn’t released before.
The Weather Station – Neon Signs. The Tamara Lindeman-led alternative folk project released their seventh album, Humanhood, in January; I found it a mixed bag but there are a couple of standouts, including this and “Window.”
Miki Berenyi Trio – 8th Deadly Sin. This track from the former lead singer/guitarist of Lush has a similar vibe but lacks the acerbic wit of Lush’s best tracks like “Single Girl” and “Ladykiller.” Her new group will release its first album Tripla on April 4th.
Japanese Breakfast – Orlando in Love. I really need to read Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner’s acclaimed and best-selling memoir, since I like at least some of her music – although this track leans towards the lighter end of her music. Her stuff is so poppy that she’s often on that line between stuff I find very catchy and stuff that feels a bit twee.
Freckle – Paranoid. Freckle is Ty Segall plus Color Green’s Corey Madden; they put out their self-titled debut album on the last day of January, and a lot of it is mopey and boring, but this song is fantastic – you can hear both artists’ influence here, with the swirling chord changes I associate with Color Green and Segall’s brand of off-kilter melody in the vocals.
The Tubs – Narcissist. A little janglier tune this time from this Welsh band that rose from the ashes of Joanna Gruesome.
The Wombats – Can’t Say No. I’m a little concerned about the upcoming Wombats album Oh! The Ocean, due out on the 21st, as the singles they’ve released so far have a definite album-tracks feel to them, with neither the big hooks or the clever lyrics of even their last album, 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not the World.
Brooke Combe – This Town. I had Combe’s “Black is the New Gold” on my top 100 tracks of 2023, then lost track of her (no pun intended) until this ebullient song, from her new album Dancing at the Edge of the World, popped up on a playlist I subscribe to on Spotify. It’s quite different from the earlier song beyond her vocals, still in the intersection of pop and R&B but with more of the former in some of the vocals and the string arrangements.
NIJI – Mo ti délé. I’ve had a few of NIJI’s tracks on playlists over the last year-plus, but just learned that he was the organist for Knicks games at some point. The jazz pianist’s next album, Oríkì, comes out on the 28th.
Samba Touré – Assouma Kagne. Touré is a Malian desert blues guitarist, no relation (as far as I can tell) to his late mentor, the legendary Ali Farka Touré, or Ali Farka’s son Vieux, sometimes known as “Samba.” This Samba’s style is more acoustic than that of either of those two artists or of the Nigerian superstar Mdou Moctar, which to my ears makes it seem less rooted in the American blues tradition. Samba just released his tenth album, featuring this midtempo track.
Cymande – Chasing an Empty Dream. I had never heard of Cymande before this track, even though the band is older than I am, releasing their self-titled debut album in 1972. They put out four albums in ten years, broke up in 1981, then reunited to play some shows in the early 2000s after their music found a renaissance through sampling and via Spike Lee’s use of one of their tracks in two of his films. They put out an album in 2015, their first in over 40 years, and then just released their next one, Renascence, in January. It’s very old-school 1970s funk with a Caribbean tilt; I hear a lot of Commodores, Ohio Players, even some R&B like Curtis Mayfield in this particular song. Also, bassist/singer Steve Scipio was once Attorney General of Anguilla. How many bands can claim that?
The Wombats last four albums all reached Top 5 in UK, but hardly registered in the US, which is a shame because i’d love to see them live
I hope something from the new Dream Theater release makes the next list.
Mogwai is really good live; they’re hitting several US cities in April/May.